Returning south, open water was reached in latitude 81° 34′, about 50 miles north of Table Island. The party had been forty-eight days on the ice. During this journey several seals and bears were killed, and these assisted very much both for meat and fuel. The islet at Table Island was reached on the 12th of August, and it was found that bears had devoured all the bread, amounting to 100 lb., left there. To this islet Parry applied the name of Lieutenant Ross. The _Hecla_ was reached on 21st August, after an absence of sixty-one days, and the total distance travelled was estimated at 1127 miles. Parry writes: “Considering our constant exposure to wet, cold, and fatigue, our stockings having generally been drenched in snow-water for twelve hours out of every twenty-four, I had great reason to be thankful for the excellent health in which, upon the whole, we reached the ship. There is no doubt that we had all become, in a certain degree, gradually weaker for some time past; but only three men of our party now required medical care, two of them with badly swelled legs and general debility, and the other from a bruise; but even these three returned to their duty in a short time.” The _Hecla_ left Treurenburg Bay on 28th August, rounded Hakluyt’s Headland on the 30th, and arrived at Shetland on 17th September. Here Parry left the ship, and proceeded to London _via_ Inverness. Having finished his narrative of this attempt to reach the North Pole, Parry makes the following observations:—